Another Olympic wrestler returns gold in protest

Feb. 26, 2013
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) dropped wrestling from the 2020 Olympic Games to make way for a new sport. In this file photo from Aug. 4, 2012, the elimination rounds of the Greco-Roman competition take place during the London Olympics. / Topical Press Agency Getty Images

by Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY Sports

by Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY Sports

The outcry after wrestling was voted out of the Summer Olympics beginning with 2020 has taken many forms. The latest came Tuesday when another Olympic wrestler sent his gold medal back to the International Olympic Committee in protest, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Russia's Sagid Murtazaliev, who won heavyweight freestyle gold at the 2000 Games, followed the example of Bulgarian champion Valentin Yordanov, who sent back his 1996 gold medal last week.

"The decision to return my Olympic medal was not easy for me," Murtazaliev said in a letter addressed to IOC president Jacques Rogge and obtained by RIA Novosti.

Will any U.S. wrestlers follow form? Not likely, said USA Wrestling spokesman Gary Abbott. "Every culture and country are going to look at things in different ways. Each wrestling nation and each individual athlete will do what they can to keep the issue in front of the world," Abbott said. "I don't think there's been a call within the wrestling community to do this. I think these are individual statements being made by individual athletes wanting to make a difference in the discussion. We haven't heard that from any of our athletes."

The U.S. is taking a strategic approach, Abbott said. USA Wrestling formed a heavyweight committee to help restore Olympic wrestling. The group, the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic Wrestling, is chaired by former world champ and Olympic medalist Bill Scherr.

When Yordanov returned his medal he held an emotional news conference. "With this act I express my solidarity with the millions of athletes and fans of our sport who are condemning the recommendation of the IOC," he said. "Our sport is an integral part of the Olympic movement and one of the foundations of both the ancient and modern Olympics."

Yordanov said Rogge had achieved something that many politicians had failed to do.

"He unreservedly united Russia, the United States and Iran for a single cause -- saving the sport of wrestling, without which the Olympics will never be the same," Yordanov said.

Bulgarian Greco-Roman wrestling national team coach Armen Nazarian, a two-time Olympic champion, said he was considering going on hunger strike in protest, according to Reuters.

The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to recommend for 2020 inclusion among eight candidates: wrestling, baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding and wushu. The final vote will be made in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.